Bathrooms in the Spirit World?
by Red Clay
Summary: What happened to Sokka when Hei Bai abducted him?  Probably not this, but it's fun to dream.


_A one hour sketch I wrote, because I was bored of editing and character developing._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar:tLA. This is all in good fun, so no need to get litigious._

**Bathrooms in the Spirit World?**

It felt like giving birth, and I was the seal pup. 'Least I think that's what it felt like. I always passed out before it got to that part. Maybe that's not it. I got it! It was like diving headfirst into the ocean, naked, only before the cold could choke the air out of my lungs, it was like I was flying back out, back into the open air, but I wasn't wet or freezing or naked.

Yeah, my clothes are still on me, blue and… glowing! Ah! I'm dead! Oh, why did I have to leave behind such a handsome corpse? I never even got a chance to abuse it. Wait… if this is an out of body experience, where's my body?

"Looking for something?" asked a voice from freakin' nowhere! It was a girl. I think it was a girl. All of her was lit weird and moving around, like Aang was Airbending her clothes and they were all over her and on fire with white.

"Okay, stop." The swirly girl stilled, but she still kind of rippled. "Where did that giant four armed monster go?"

She laughed and rippled like water reflecting the moon. "Hei Bai? Now that he's calmed down, he's probably off grazing on dandelion clouds."

"That thing was carrying me through the forest and Aang was flying in to grab my hand and everything was going so fast and I think I saw a giant panda and…"

"You can slow down, now?"

I heard her speak, but I was too busy being dumbfounded by the yellow and purple koi swimming through the air and the squirrel hatching from an egg and diving into the green grass like it was water. Dew drops hung from the blades like fruit, then ripened into pea sized watermelons. Mittens licked their furry brown bellies like fat felines. Swords made out of lace curtains marched over a hill toward a scowling sun. His cheeks were flushed red. He must not have wanted to fall behind the mountains. One of the mountains erupted and stars came shooting out and hanging in the sky, making everything smell like crispy walrus-orca bacon and… something else.

Mom's hair.

"Where am I?" was about as cliché as it gets, but, what can I say, even the best of us lose their funny in the face of unabashed absurdity.

"In the Ether," the girl said.

"What?" I cracked.

"In the… quantum field."

"Uh?…"

"In Yesod?"

"Ye-no idea what that is."

"Swadhisthana sound right?"

"Keep goin'."

"But you're one of the Water People. Shouldn't you at least know _that_ chakra?"

"Okay, stop making up words, alright. Just tell me where I am."

The light girl threw down her arms and sighed, "I'm trying. Let's see…" She paused for a second and then I felt her look at me while I tried to figure out which end of that tigerdillo was the real head. Both heads looked at me, then it turned into a boulder.

"You're in the imagination."

"You mean, _my_ imagination? Wow, I'm crazier than I thought."

"Not _your _imagination. _The _imagination_."_

"And I'm lost again."

She walked - floated was more like it - over to the rock formally known as a push-me-pull-you tigerdillo and sat on it. It seemed safe, so I thought, other than it reanimating and chomping my spirit's arm off, what's the worst that could happen? I really didn't know anymore, but I sat down next to the light girl anyway. At least her voice sounded right, if a little echoey.

"Okay," she began, "Your imagination is private in your head, like a room in your house. Well, this is the world outside your house. This space is open to everyone. Does that make sense?"

"I just saw a rainbow sucker punch a tree that turned into a deer. Look, the rainbow's got the oak-deer tied up like it's a colorful snake."

"I'd bet on the oak-deer."

"No way, the rainbow's defying more reality."

The deer with brown bark skin and leafy boughs for antlers struggled around and then seemed to whisper something to the rainbow. The rainbow unraveled and jumped, seemingly frightened, back into the sky, letting the treeanimal graze in peace, eat tiny watermelon grass.

"Told you," the girl giggled.

The creature noticed us watching it, looked up with its ears raised, and then melt into a puddle of chocolate frosting. I hoped it was chocolate frosting.

"So, what now?" I asked, choosing not to fight what I couldn't understand.

The light girl seemed to already have a plan. "See that big disembodied mouth trying to eat the flying fish?"

"I do, I guess."

"Every time it eats one, try and find where the fish comes back."

"But there's no body. Where does it go?"

"That's the game. First to find five is the winner."

"What? So like, we have to catch 'em?"

"If you want to prove you saw them."

"But they're disappearing."

"They aren't disappearing. They're just changing places."

She ran off following one set of chomping lips and teeth and I followed another school of aerial tuna. She had caught five and held them, flapping, by their tails. I only found one flying out of a hollow log. The girl showed me that the rest were hiding in my pants. I made up a fun little dance trying to tell them they weren't welcome and they obliged, while the girl laughed at my flailing. It didn't bother me though.

Something about her was comforting. Serene and plush like a warm fur coat.

She smiled, I think. "Now, now, loverboy. Don't be getting any ideas."

"Why not?"

"Because they'll come true."

A minute later, there was white light everywhere, enveloping me. I was in it, sinking into it and it was warm. All my (spirit) muscles tensed. I was sweating moonshine. Her soul was shining and so was mine. It was becoming me. Then I felt relaxed and happy.

I could see her again. She sounded a little sad, but hopeful, too. "I'm a little sorry that you're going to forget all about me when you get out."

"I won't?"

"No. You don't know me yet in Malkuth… in the real world, that is."

"In the real world? Well, what's your name? Maybe I'll find you someday?"

"What's it matter if you aren't going to remember any of this?"

"Well, I'll know it, now. That matters for something, right? Com'on."

Her wavy form got a little more definite and I could almost make out her face.

"I am the girl of your dreams," she said. "I am your feeling in this place. What you see is fantasy, dreams not yet frozen into crystals of reality."

"Fantasy crystals? So… you're not real, then?"

She smiled and it was like lamplight in the endless dark. "If I do not exist, then you have to create me."

Next thing I knew, none of it had happened and I was walking out of a grove of bamboo stalks back into the village that the four armed monster had wrecked up. Aang and Katara were there and really glad to see me. It was good to see them, too, but I was really glad just to see a bathroom. I really had to go.


End file.
